Dear God, let me be a doer of your will today. Let me not rest idly and just wish to be a better person. Let me act. Let me expend effort. Let me, after all, work.

Let my work for you, on behalf of you, be prayer.

Thy will be done.

(Letter #1086)

Dear God, let me avoid notice today. I wish for fame, notoriety, to be seen to be a good person. This is selfish temptation. Let me be an anonymous worker, doing your will today. Let me quietly perform your tasks, O Lord, skirting the spotlight and instead shining it on others.

All that approval I feel I deserve: let me abandon it. Let me seek no reward for piety, but the satisfaction of performing quiet duty. Let me seek and do your will, with integrity of purpose.

(Letter #1085)

Dear God, there is a pile of undone tasks heaped all around me. They can easily overwhelm me, both in their current state but also once I begin action. I can easily devote all my time, energy, and attention to the doing of things. Where, then, resides my relationship with you?

Lord, let me place my relationship with you before all things, even those that feel urgent. Let them slip into the background. Live, O Lord, at the forefront of my attention. Let me place you centrally in all my thoughts and actions.

I panic as I begin to think of all there is to do. It paralyzes me. Lord, slow my thoughts, moderate my emotions. Let my heart beat become measured, ease my grip, unclench my jaw.

Here is a pile of tasks. Let me calmly choose one, and do it as an act of gratitude to you. Let me do things slowly, with purpose. Stay in my mind. Let me seek and do your will only.

(Letter #1084)

Dear God, I so readily accept bounty as a gift. Make me willing to accept trial and difficulty equally as a gift from you. A hard road makes me strong. Calamity makes me more compassionate to others who suffer.

Lord, let me view everything that comes my way with equal delight. Let me not judge your gifts, but instead seek the best use I can make of each one. Thy will be done.

(Letter #1083)

Dear God, I wish to know your will, to have an understanding of the path you would have me follow. Why? This, in itself, is a kind of lack of faith. I ought to abandon myself to you regardless of the direction it takes me. If this is so, then in truth I have no need to know the goal.

Lord, keep me blind, that I may rely on you more and more. Let my every halting footstep be one taken gingerly, gripping tightly to your hand, in full trust. I so wish to know the map. Thwart this, O Lord. Let my ignorance be your blessing.

(Letter #1082)

Dear God, let me live rightly today. Let me submit to your will. Burn away my own plans, undermine my will. Thwart my desires. Rule me — all that I may live the life you have decreed.

I wish for happiness and good feeling. Let me live a life today of right action, without care for my own thoughts and feelings. This search for happiness is both futile and disloyal. Let me willingly act contrary to my inclinations, submitting to your dictates. Through denial of self, Lord, let me grow into the person you would have me be.

Let me not believe this fiction of self. I am yours. Let me act as such today.

(Letter #1081)

Dear God, I cannot flee you. Wherever I may travel, however far from your path I may send my mind and intentions, you persist in walking right there with me. You protect me when I act in lunacy. You intercede in calamity. You wait patiently as I slowly come back to myself and remember who and what I am – your beloved child.

Lord, let me cease my flight. Let me sit with you as you sit with me. Let me rest in your sunshine, watching the river pass by.

Thy will be done.

(Letter #1080)

Dear God, how can my devotion to your path grow? How can I more intently rely upon you? How can I be better today than I was yesterday? Show me the way, O Lord. Let me not coast.

Whatever work I am willing to do – call me to do double. Let me marvel, at the day’s end, at how are you have driven me to surpass self. Thy will be done, in all things and in all ways.

(Letter #1079)

Dear God, let me not think of myself today. Let me act contrary to my instincts. Where I would protect my position, let me give way. Where I would speak, let me remain silent. Where I would seek credit, let me shine the spotlight on others.

Lord, let me have trust in your guidance. I am so fearful that I must manage the world. Let me accept that such an effort is worse than futile, that it only has the opposite of its intended effect. Let me please have the willingness to hand over all things to your guidance and direction.

Let me seek and do your will today. Grant me knowledge of your will for me, and the willingness and power to carry it out.

(Letter #1078)

Dear God, all that I have left undone weighs upon me. It leaves me with fear that my derelictions will be discovered, that the consequences of inaction will come to me.

Lord, grant me sight. Let me see through this mist and fantasy until the world is true and clear.

My day, as it approaches, appears as a cloud of panic. Shine on me. Let the cloud burn away and dissipate.

Grant me willingness to do your will today.

(Letter #1077)